Post by corsair67 on Apr 5, 2008 11:10:38 GMT 12
I think this issue has come up before, but I think they are making too much out of it's potential impact at this stage.
I'd say global economic woes will have a much greater impact in the next few years, than people being concerned about their air travel harming the ozone layer.
Emissions concerns could hurt NZ: Fyfe
Teresa Ooi | April 04, 2008.
AIR New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is deeply concerned that long-haul passengers might shun travelling to New Zealand because they are worried about their carbon footprint.
Mr Fyfe said research in Britain showed that 38 per cent of passengers considered their carbon footprint when they flew.
"The market does look uncertain," he said.
"New Zealand has seen a decline in tourism numbers out of Europe in the last 12 months.
"There is no direct correlation at this early stage between environmental issues and the decline in inbound tourism.
"But it is something that genuinely concerns us and much of what we can do here in New Zealand," he told NZ parliament's finance and expenditure select committee.
The airline has started buying more fuel-efficient aircraft and has announced a scheme allowing passengers to offset their carbon footprint.
Tourism Australia's managing director Geoff Buckley said research from its top markets showed that while international tourists were concerned about climate change and environmental degradation, they were "not directly impacting their choice of destination".
He said long haul-travellers were more worried about terrorism, disease and political unrest which would affect their decision to travel or not.
Last year, a record 5.6 million international tourists visited Australia - up 2 per cent on the previous year.
However, the number of visitors fell 3 per cent to 446,100 in January this year and preliminary figures for February showed a 6 per cent bounce back to 543,000 compared with the previous corresponding period.
National carrier Qantas Airways launched a carbon offset program which involved 100,000 passengers across the group's worldwide network of about 950 flights last September.
"Qantas will pay to offset the equivalent of approximately 40,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases associated with these flights with the money to be used to plant and maintain around 90,000 Mallee Eucalyptus trees across Australia in an agreement with CO2 Australia," Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said at the launch on September 18 last year.
However, Qantas spokeswoman Melissa Thomson was unable to comment whether long-haul passengers from Europe worried about their carbon footprint might affect their decision to travel to Australia.
Singapore Airlines, which has one of the world's youngest fleet of aircraft, said: "We are not noticing any impact on our passenger loads as a result of customer feedback on environmental measures.
"The key challenge is to improve fuel productivity of our aircraft and make more efficient use of fuel to reduce the amount of carbon emmissions and other pollutants," said a spokeswoman for SIA.
The airline has no plans to introduce a carbon offset program.
I'd say global economic woes will have a much greater impact in the next few years, than people being concerned about their air travel harming the ozone layer.
Emissions concerns could hurt NZ: Fyfe
Teresa Ooi | April 04, 2008.
AIR New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is deeply concerned that long-haul passengers might shun travelling to New Zealand because they are worried about their carbon footprint.
Mr Fyfe said research in Britain showed that 38 per cent of passengers considered their carbon footprint when they flew.
"The market does look uncertain," he said.
"New Zealand has seen a decline in tourism numbers out of Europe in the last 12 months.
"There is no direct correlation at this early stage between environmental issues and the decline in inbound tourism.
"But it is something that genuinely concerns us and much of what we can do here in New Zealand," he told NZ parliament's finance and expenditure select committee.
The airline has started buying more fuel-efficient aircraft and has announced a scheme allowing passengers to offset their carbon footprint.
Tourism Australia's managing director Geoff Buckley said research from its top markets showed that while international tourists were concerned about climate change and environmental degradation, they were "not directly impacting their choice of destination".
He said long haul-travellers were more worried about terrorism, disease and political unrest which would affect their decision to travel or not.
Last year, a record 5.6 million international tourists visited Australia - up 2 per cent on the previous year.
However, the number of visitors fell 3 per cent to 446,100 in January this year and preliminary figures for February showed a 6 per cent bounce back to 543,000 compared with the previous corresponding period.
National carrier Qantas Airways launched a carbon offset program which involved 100,000 passengers across the group's worldwide network of about 950 flights last September.
"Qantas will pay to offset the equivalent of approximately 40,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases associated with these flights with the money to be used to plant and maintain around 90,000 Mallee Eucalyptus trees across Australia in an agreement with CO2 Australia," Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said at the launch on September 18 last year.
However, Qantas spokeswoman Melissa Thomson was unable to comment whether long-haul passengers from Europe worried about their carbon footprint might affect their decision to travel to Australia.
Singapore Airlines, which has one of the world's youngest fleet of aircraft, said: "We are not noticing any impact on our passenger loads as a result of customer feedback on environmental measures.
"The key challenge is to improve fuel productivity of our aircraft and make more efficient use of fuel to reduce the amount of carbon emmissions and other pollutants," said a spokeswoman for SIA.
The airline has no plans to introduce a carbon offset program.
